


I learned it from you.

by annelesbonny



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon compliant more or less, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Quentin's suicidal ideation and dumb heroics, eventually, ft. Margo Hanson and Julia Wicker
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-14 12:08:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18052238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annelesbonny/pseuds/annelesbonny
Summary: The sharp, careful distance in Quentin’s eyes shatters like glass and all Eliot can do is drink in the sight of him, cracked open with hope.There’s so much more he needs to say, but already, he feels his mind slipping away, knows that within seconds he’ll be gone again and Quentin will be alone with the monster wearing his face.So instead, he looks at Q, half smiling and eyes burning, willing him not to give up on him, not yet. Fifty years, and it still wasn’t enough time for everything Eliot wants to do with him. He is selfish and greedy and all he can do is stare down at Quentin and think, let’s do it again until his vision goes dark and he’s gone.





	I learned it from you.

I learned it from you.

 

_“Courage, dear heart.”_

 

The beauty of all life, the answer to the puzzle, the missing mosaic tile is the life they lived together.

 

It’s this cabin with its heavy, dragging door and squealing hinges. It’s the lumpy mattress they’ve shared for half a century that’s held more love and heartbreak, laughter and tears than Quentin could ever imagine was possible, the entire spectrum of human emotion in bright technicolor. It’s the old, quilted blanket, one of the first things they bought when the reality of their situation forced them into town for supplies and Eliot, upon seeing the blanket, declared he would never again rest on only the unforgiving ground. It’s Teddy’s smile and Arielle’s laugh and Eliot’s eyes, soft at the corners and swimming with warmth as he hoists a shrieking Teddy into the air or presses a distracted, habitual kiss to Quentin’s temple.

 

Of course, by the time Quentin discovers this, Eliot’s dead and he’s digging a hole in the ground. The dirt is hard and unyielding, and he has to fight for each inch. Long after he finds the golden tile, holds it warm and waiting in his hands, he digs and digs and fucking digs. Because Eliot deserves this, deserves to rest after so many years of being strong, _decades_ of being strong, stronger than Quentin has ever been in his whole life.

 

He watches himself give Jane Chatwin the key, but he doesn’t feel it, will barely remembering doing it after he’s washed the last of the dirt from Eliot’s grave from his hands.

 

It takes him a long time to move the body ( _Eliot, Eliot, Eliot_ , his heart chants). His grip is weak and his joints creak and ache like the bones of an old house, infected with time and rot. Finally, though, it’s done.

 

And for the first time in 50 years, Quentin goes, slow and heartsick, to their bed alone.

❈

Peaches and plums.

 

Quentin sits beneath a blood-stained wedding arch and reads a letter written in his own hand about an entire life he lived in an alternate time.

 

Peaches and plums.

 

He remembers. All at once, he remembers so much; 50 years of living and loving...of losing. Grief hits like a jolt of electricity, searing through skin, muscle, and bone. But Eliot is right here, close enough to touch, half-eaten peach dripping juice on the stone between them. Quentin knows without looking that Eliot remembers it too, feels how he stills, hears the wet smack of the peach as it hits the ground and rolls away.

 

“...I got so old.”

 

“...you died.”

 

“...we had a family.”

 

Eliot’s wondering, dreamlike tone jerks Quentin out of his daze. He looks at Eliot, who’s already looking at him with a soft, strange light in his eyes. Warmth surges through him, half elation, half nausea.

 

The thing is, their life _worked_ . He doesn’t really know why or how, but it did. Even when it hurt and sucked and all he and Eliot seemed to do was scream at each other, it didn’t break. _Quentin_ didn’t break it. That has to mean something, doesn’t it?

 

“It was sort of beautiful.”

 

“It really was.”

 

Hope stutters to life in his chest, like kindling coaxed towards flame. His mind lights up, like a city grid on a dark world map, and it's suddenly as clear as day what he needs to do.

 

Because they _worked_.

 

“I know this sounds dumb, but…” Quentin says it anyways and Eliot smiles at him, an odd twist to his lips that he should’ve registered as a warning but doesn’t because he’s too caught up in Eliot’s eyes and the hope burning between his ribs.

 

“I love you, but...Not when we have a choice…”

 

Oh. _Oh_. Before Eliot’s even finished speaking, Quentin is numb. Something hollow opens up inside of him and starts to feed.  

 

_Stupid, stupid, stupid._

 

Of course Eliot would feel that way. He may have been the one telling Quentin to live his life where they were, but Quentin was the one who ran with it, dragging Eliot along with him, never stopping to ask Eliot what _he_ really wanted.

 

The blade between his ribs twists; he _thought_ he’d known what Eliot wanted.

 

Clear nights spent out under the Fillorian sky, renaming the constellations after their friends (“That one’s The Destroyer; it’s clearly Margo holding a sword.”  “Or the world’s most dangerous strap-on.”).

 

Sitting cross-legged in the grass, Teddy toddling between them, sticky hands outstretched as he takes his first steps.

 

Falling into bed after a long day of chasing after his now motherless son, ignoring his own grief until the cottage was dark and quiet and Eliot’s arms closed around him.

 

So many moments flash before his eyes that they start to blur together, a mess of memories bleeding into color bleeding into grief.

 

Quentin doesn’t look at Eliot again and swipes the tear from the corner of his eye. He moves on. _They_ move on.

❈ 

Only, they don’t. They really, really don’t. At least, Eliot knows he hasn’t, and everyday Quentin slips further away. The moment on the stairs under the arch becomes just another thing he locks away in the darkest recess of himself.

 

But then, Quentin stands in front of them, apart from them, and announces his decision to take over as lifetime jailor to a monster that scares gods.

 

But then, Eliot kills the monster with a god-killing bullet and leads Quentin back to their friends, and everything is almost okay until it completely, catastrophically isn’t.

 

But then, darkness.

 

But then, Eliot steps back into memory and watches himself break Quentin’s heart.

 

Just when Eliot thinks he’s going to drown in the shame of it, choking on his own cowardice, he realizes that this is just a room and he can cross it, that his body may be occupied by a homicidal, child-like, apparently immortal monster but this is _his_ mind and _his_ memory,  his regret and his shame, and he can cross it.

 

So he does, and he does what he should’ve done then, what he promises himself he’ll do the first chance he gets. He kisses Quentin.

 

_I love you, but…_

 

_I love you._

 

_When I’m braver._

 

_I’m going to be braver._

❈

Eliot steps through the door and suddenly, Quentin is there in front of him. Not a memory. Not a dream. Real.  He has one moment of pure, unadulterated joy before he registers the expression on Quentin’s face.

 

Quentin, the one person Eliot can always count on to have more stubborn than sense, looks defeated, hollowed out from whatever horrors the monster has forced him to endure. His hair is shorter than it's ever been before and he’s thinner; he looks exhausted and heartbroken and every fiber of Eliot’s being screams at him to _fix this_.  

 

But he can’t, not now; there isn’t time. Already, he can feel his grip on his body slipping, can feel the dark, cold fingers scrambling for purchase.

 

“Fifty years, who gets proof of concept like that?”

 

“What?” The raw, wondering tone is pure Quentin and Eliot reaches for him, his heart pounding in his throat.

 

“Peaches and plums, motherfucker. I’m alive in here.”

 

The sharp, careful distance in Quentin’s eyes shatters like glass and all Eliot can do is drink in the sight of him, cracked open with hope.

 

There’s so much more he needs to say, but already, he feels his mind slipping away, knows that within seconds he’ll be gone again and Quentin will be alone with the monster wearing his face.

 

So instead, he looks at Q, half smiling and eyes burning, willing him not to give up on him, not yet. Fifty years, and it still wasn’t enough time for everything Eliot wants to do with him. He is selfish and greedy and all he can do is stare down at Quentin and think, _let’s do it again_ until his vision goes dark and he’s gone.

❈

It takes two months and twelve days to get Eliot back in his body.

 

By the end, Quentin is running purely on terror, the combined power of Margo and Julia’s determination, and a furious hope that Quentin hoards protectively near his heart. Hope that he only lets himself feel in the dark, the quiet moments when the monster is close enough that he would know if he tried to do anything permanent to Eliot’s body, but not close enough that Quentin has to look at Eliot’s eyes and not see _Eliot’s eyes_.

 

That’s when he takes out his hope, closes his eyes, and lets it wash over him. It might be a shitty metaphor, but his life feels more like a shitty metaphor every day so he’s decided to lean in.

 

Sometimes, Margo finds him and they sit, shoulder to shoulder and hands clasped, each leeching warmth and strength from the other until they both somehow feel better and worse. Other times, Quentin is alone and when he closes his eyes, he is somewhere else. It’s not always the mosaic and their life there; often, its Brakebills before magic went to shit or Fillory in a snatched, unexpected moment of wonder between the violence and curses and coups. He doesn’t really sleep, but it is some kind of rest and it's all he gets for a long time.  

 

Julia puts the pieces together in the end, although she’s almost too late. Quentin and Margo have their own hare-brained scheme that’s part ancient ritual, part modified super-spell, fueled by desperate, starving hope and not a small amount of potentially deadly Dewey coins. But it’s Eliot and they’ve run out of time.

 

By the time Penny 23 apparates them back to the apartment, at least one of Quentin’s ribs is cracked, Margo’s nose is definitely broken, and Eliot is back. Slightly delirious, barely able to stand on his own, and steadfastly refusing to let go of either Quentin or Margo, but alive. Quentin feels his heart as it beats, his chest expanding and contracting with each breath, and the warmth of his hand wrapped around his elbow.

 

“Here, sit down,” Quentin says softly, glancing at Margo behind Eliot’s back as they navigate him onto the sofa.

 

Eliot falls back with a sigh. Quentin tries not to look at the blood crusted on his pants, the shredded remains of his t-shirt and the bruises peeking through. Focuses instead on Eliot’s face, more animated and alive and _him_ than Quentin has seen in months, on his eyes, tired and wide and locked on Quentin with a kind of intensity that makes his face hot and his mind wander to the other times Eliot has fixed him with that look, the ones that typically resulted in Quentin being kissed breathless and Teddy, and his exaggerated gagging noises, stomping out of the cottage.

 

“Q.” Eliot says, and holds out his hand.

 

Quentin stares down at him, safe and here and reaching for him, and all at once, he feels _everything_. In one, cataclysmic wave of pent up fear and grief and _oh god please not him_ strong enough to make him stumble, landing hard on the couch beside Eliot. Eliot, whose arms are around him, whose hand gently finds the still strange, too short strands of his hair, who pulls Quentin closer and closer until there isn’t a part of them left that isn’t touching.

 

“It’s okay, it’s okay now, Q,” Eliot whispers, but Quentin shakes his head even as he hides his face in Eliot’s shoulder.

 

“It’s not,” he says but it comes out more like a gasp and last ditch desperate. “You...I… El, you were possessed for months. I should be the one- I should-.”

 

Eliot shifts, bending his head until they’re pressed cheek to cheek.

 

“You should let me hold you. Please, Q, just let me hold you.”

 

Distantly, Quentin hears Margo ordering everyone out of the room, hears Penny’s disgruntled “Ok, well, that actually explains a lot”, hears Julia’s quiet laugh in response. But mostly, he hears Eliot: his heart beat, the soft sounds of his breathing, the quiet nonsense he whispers into Quentin’s hair.

 

Then, finally, he hears nothing at all.

❈

Eliot stands outside in the evening air and is grateful for the chill. He’s been monster-free for almost two weeks, but only now does he feel like his body is finally starting to thaw, like it just might be his again. The cigarette between his fingertips glows orange and he watches it burn down to a useless nub of paper and ash. He only looks up from his hands when the glass door slides open and Julia joins him on the balcony. She holds up a pack of cigarettes and grins.

 

“Lifted them off Q,” she says. “They’re bad for him.”

 

“And not for you?”

 

She shrugs. “Resistance to lung cancer is apparently one of the perks of the whole ex-goddess gig.”

 

Eliot scoffs, but his mouth twitches toward a grin. He forgets sometimes that he likes Julia, in spite of the whole Quentin mental hospital thing. She doesn’t have the monopoly on breaking Quentin’s heart.

 

“Ah well,” he says, snagging a new cigarette from her and lighting up. “Some of us smoke to die.”

 

Silence sits heavy between them for a moment.

 

“Don’t.” She says quietly. “Die, I mean. Don’t die.”

 

Eliot inhales acrid smoke and something like regret.

 

Her hand finds its way into his.

 

“He would have killed himself. Trying to save you. He didn’t care anymore, and I...I need you to know that. Because a Quentin that doesn’t care scares the shit out of me.”

 

Eliot exhales.

 

“Quentin always cares. That’s kind of his thing.”

 

Julia makes a noise low in her throat.

 

“Not about himself. He’s fucking shit about that, and it’s been getting worse. And I don’t know how to help him; I never have. Do you know how many times he’s been hospitalized since we’ve know each other? Three. Those are the times I know about, at least.

 

“That’s not your fault. Quentin’s brain is...well, really fucking beautiful, but broken sometimes too. That’s not your fault, and it isn’t his either.”

 

Eliot hears himself say it and he almost lets himself believe it. That this isn’t all his fucking fault.

 

Quentin is inside, laughing at Margo who’s smiling with the kind of unhindered joy Eliot hasn’t seen on her face in a very long time. But Quentin, Quentin is like something out of a dream, or a memory, or something better than both. Eliot can’t take his eyes off of him. He’s smiling, and Eliot’s missed that, the curve of his mouth, creasing his cheeks and lightning sparks of joy in his eyes.

 

Three months, but it feels longer. Fifty years, and it wasn’t long enough. Eliot told Quentin once that time was an illusion but he feels it now more than he ever has before. His body aches, but that has nothing to do with age and everything to do with whatever shit the monster was doing while it was in control. Eliot wants to ask, wants to know what his body did in his absence, but Quentin is fragile and Margo is guarded. It doesn’t seem worth it, in the end.

 

Julia sighs, smoke curls around her lips and drifts up in the air between them. She drops her cigarette and crushes it beneath her boot.

 

“There’s always going to be enough blame to go around. Talk to him, Eliot. Before we both lose him.”

 

And then she’s gone, back through the glass door and finding her way to Kady’s side, running her hand along Quentin’s back as she does. Eliot turns away, and lights another cigarette.

 

After several moments, a hand, slim and scarred and more familiar to Eliot than his own, picks up the packet Julia left behind.

 

“I keep telling her to stop stealing my shit,” Quentin grumbles.

 

Eliot holds out his own cigarette.

 

“Apparently, she’s taken it upon herself to save you from lung cancer.”

 

Quentin takes the cigarette and their fingers brush. Eliot swallows. His throat is dry with stale smoke and nervous anticipation.

 

“I see you don’t have the same concerns,” Quentin says, glancing sideways at Eliot with a small smile. He puts the cigarette between his lips, eyes fluttering closed as he inhales. Eliot doesn’t know whether to stare at his mouth or the line of his throat. He settles for his eyelashes and the pinprick thin shadows they cast on his cheekbones.

 

“Of course not,” he says easily, accepting the cigarette back. “If you’re getting lung cancer, than my lungs are certainly fucked so we’ll just go out together.”

 

Quentin is quiet for a long moment.

 

“I think that might be our problem, El. I just--it feels like one of us is always almost dying or willing to die or actually  dying, and- and I think I’m really fucking tired of it. I mean, is it so crazy to just want to _live_? And I know that sounds stupidly ironic coming from me, but it would be so goddamn nice to live for a second without some bullshit life or death stakes hanging over us.”

 

Quentin’s fingers are clenching the metal railing so hard his knuckles are white.

 

“Q, I-” Eliot starts, but Quentin is already shaking his head, curling back into himself and away from Eliot.

 

“Sorry. Sorry, I’m really tired. I should g-”

 

“Q!” Eliot says it sharper than he means, but it does the job. Quentin stops, blinks up at him in confusion, lips parted slightly, body tensed for flight.

 

“Just...just slow down for a second. I’m not,” Eliot exhales in frustration. “I’m not _good_ at this, which is exceedingly irritating, but I’m working through it. That’s not the point. The point is…”

 

Eliot turns until they’re facing each other, and Quentin is close enough to touch, close enough that Eliot can see the gentle rise and fall of his chest.

 

“The point is... _fuck_ lung cancer, Q. And fuck gods and monsters and fascist librarians and these self-sacrificing clusterfucks we keep getting ourselves into.” He steps closer, and Quentin’s back hits the railing, one hand reaching behind to steady himself.  “And _especially_ fuck dying because I have so much I want to do and I’d really, really like to do it with you.”

 

Eliot rests his forehead against Quentin’s, flicks his smoldering cigarette into the darkness, and brings both his hands up to cup Quentin’s face.

 

“I love you, and I’m sorry. You were right; we do work. I was just afraid.”

 

Quentin’s fingers tremble against Eliot’s side.

 

“Why? Why were you afraid?”

 

Eliot exhales shakily, eyes squeezed shut. _Be brave, be brave, be brave_. He pulls back just far enough that he can look down into Quentin’s eyes, somehow still sweet and vulnerable despite everything Eliot’s put them through.

 

“Because you make me happy. And sometimes, most of the time, I don’t think I deserve to be happy.”

 

Quentin’s brow furrows adorably. “I think you deserve to be happy.”

 

His sincerity breaks and heals Eliot’s heart all at once.

 

“I know,” he whispers, and kisses Quentin.

 

In general, Eliot tends to shy away from overblown, romantic metaphors, but when Quentin surges up against him and Eliot’s fingers curl around the back of his neck, all he can think is _this is what home feels like._

 

_Fin._

**Author's Note:**

> I thought about this quote from Tim Kreider almost constantly while writing this thing: “if we want the rewards of being loved we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known” because I think that’s about as Eliot Waugh as one can get. 
> 
> Title comes from That Scene because it's been weeks and that fucking line has been circling my brain like the world's most disgustingly tender vulture. Um, there are some pop culture and poetry references sprinkled on top and some truly ostentatious metaphors. Also a bunch of dialogue lifted from ep 4x5 in general. Also some from 3x5.
> 
> Quote at the beginning comes from fucking Aslan or some shit. 
> 
>  
> 
> Any and all mistakes are mine and feel free to come tell me about them on [my tumblr](http://annelesbonny.tumblr.com/)


End file.
